indian trees

The tree leans over our house

waiting for wind.

A scar runs deep in its skin

and memories are scattered around its base

in tiny fragments.

It wishes to

scream out its story,

but it has no mouth to do so.

It's family is around us,

standing among the other trees,

each leaning in its own way,

each scarred differently,

each having different memories of the past.

The past tells of these trees

- they cannot tell for themselves -

and how the people off the land

journeyed through and

stripped off

the covering of the trees,

eating the woody flesh.

There was no other food,

and they did not take

enough to kill the trees.

Only enough to leave scars.

It makes one realize

that sacrifices leave scars.

Pain leaves marks.

Suffering leaves wounds.

And sometimes

one must sacrifice

unwillingly,

as the trees.

They did not choose to be the trees.

They did not choose to provide food

for the people of the land.

They did not choose to be scarred.

But:

They did choose to not die

from the pain.

They chose to keep living;

to keep breathing;

to keep making shade and oxygen;

to keep being trees.

They did not fall

to the ground and

rot into the dirt. They hurt.

They bled their sap.

They felt the wind against bare

wood and winced at it's cold teeth.

But though they hurt,

they continued living

long enough

to lean

over our house.